1] There are “real questions” about whether vaccines cause autism in children.

2] wi-fi in schools might be harming kids.

Her dependence on RT was notable:

3] RT regular Ajamu Baraka, who slammed the “gangster states of NATO,” was her choice for VP.

4] The only network to consistently cover her candidacy and invite her on air was RT.

5] RT hosted a primary debate for the Green Party.

6] She travelled to Russia in 2015 to attend that dinner where Putin lauded Flynn.

7] Shortly before that she attended an RT event and met with the Ambassador.

8] Claimed no knowledge of how and why Assange addressed the Green Convention on closed circuit to promote the wikileaks/Russian exposure of DNC emails.

9] Pretty much spouted the Russian lines about HRC throughout the campaign.

Now she claims that Senate committee interest in her Russian ties is an attempt to smear her and that she sees no evidence of Russian interference during the campaign season, because the intelligence community is often wrong.

Back in the day when the only foreign money in an American campaign was Canadian, MX, or Brit, generally from investors in multinational sellers like Schenley’s and Molson’s and Dos Equis, and generally to both parties, this was all tolerable. It was during the Clinton-Dole race when Chinese and Indian money went to Clinton and Saudi money to Dole in very big sums that we saw how campaigns could be bent and beholden. The Russians knew that this loony was a spoiler on the margins, and they knew that DJT was not a cold warrior R. Their objective was disruption and fragmentation of their adversary, and they could pick a D next time if it suited them, which it might well, against a traditional R.

I don’t know how we can possibly stop it from happening again. But somehow, keeping anti-American, as opposed to simply commercial, interests out of our campaigns would be a good thing. My guess is that the best we can do is continuing exposure.

Could we force American media voting ownership to be limited to American citizens? Would there be a constitutional bar? Could we create a credible ombudsman to expose the source of digital media rumors, in a timely fashion? I wonder what the Intelligence Committees will advise.

Last night, Donald Trump fired FBI Director James Comey. This will excite the chattering classes and provide endless fodder for the media, but it shouldn’t matter much to the markets. At the margin, it will probably push bond yields lower.

Import prices rose .5% MOM and are up 4.1% YOY. Bonds are shrugging off the data, however it could be a sign of inflation creeping up. We did see a small sell-off in the dollar during April, but nothing of that magnitude. Something to watch.

We will have some Fed-speak this afternoon with Eric Rosengren and Neel Kashkari speaking at 12:30 and 1:30 EST respectively.

With all the data over the past week, Fed Funds futures are moving mainly for the September meeting, which now has a 40% chance of a 25 basis point hike, up from 20% about a week ago. June is currently pegged at 80%. The weak Q1 print so far has not had an effect on trader sentiment.

Good advice for the first time homebuyer who is also saddled with student loan debt. Waiting until the deferral period has passed helps. Also look at FHA loans, however there are caveats.

Job openings in the construction sector are higher now than they were at the peak of the bubble. Yet the hiring rate is just off the lows of the bust. This certainly corroborates the claim that a labor shortage is a big reason why housing starts are still depressed. Lots of skilled labor left the sector after the bubble burst and got jobs in the energy patch. There is only one way to square that circle and that is to raise wages to attract talent. Which means compressing margins if builders are unable to pass on that cost increase. Regardless, it doesn’t bode well for new home affordability unless we begin to see wholesale increases in wages across the US, which hasn’t been happening.

Markets are higher this morning on no real news. Bonds and MBS are down.

Slow news day, for the most part.

The week after the jobs report is usually pretty data-light and this week is no exception. Today is the last day of Fed-Speak until the FOMC meeting next week. Bonds will probably be driven more by overseas developments than anything going on the US.

The Markit PMI Services index slipped in November to 54.6 from 54.8 the month before. The ISM Non-Manufacturing PMI improved as well to a strong reading of 57.2.

Tight credit remains a driving factor in today’s mortgage market as credit is loose for some people at the high end and tight for everyone else. In fact, PIMCO estimates that between 1 and 1.4 million people who were eligible for a mortgage in 2002 (before the big subprime explosion) are unable to get a mortgage today under the new rules and regulations. The knock on effects (like tight inventory and lackluster homebuilding) remain as headwinds to the economy as a whole. This not only includes mortgage credit to borrowers, but also bank credit to small homebuilders etc.

Investors return to the markets after the Thanksgiving holiday contemplating a re-litigation of the 2016 Presidential election. Bonds and MBS are up.

Green Party candidate Jill Stein is requesting a recount in PA, MI, and WI. Donald Trump took to Twitter to condemn the effort and alleged that “millions” of votes were fraudulent. The Clinton campaign is keeping its distance but will watch to make sure outside players aren’t interfering with the process. If she manages to turn all 3 states, then she could win. One question that has come up has been whether Russia could have hacked the voting machines. That possibility looks unlikely.

The highlight of the week will be the jobs report on Friday. The Street is looking for 170k jobs added, an unemployment rate of 4.9% and an increase in average hourly earnings of 0.2%.

The FOMC minutes from the early November meeting were a non-event, and the FOMC is definitely setting the stage for a December hike: “Most participants expressed a view that it could well become appropriate to raise the target range for the federal funds rate relatively soon, so long as incoming data provided some further evidence of continued progress toward the Committee’s objectives.” In fact, a “few” participants wanted a hike at the November meeting. The December FOMC meeting is in two weeks.

The FHFA raised the conforming limit from 417k to $424k. This was the first increase in 10 years. They also increased the high balance conforming limit to $636k.

Home Prices rose 0.1% in September and are up 5.4% YOY. Home prices are now within a percent of their peaks from June 2006.

Black Friday saw more shoppers, but less spending than in the past. About 154 million bought something in a store or online over the weekend, but they only spent about $289 as opposed to $300 a year ago. The National Retail Federation attributed the drop in spending to deep discounts offered by retailers. Black Friday online purchases were up 22% YOY.

So far, it looks like Jeb Hensarling is in the mix to take over as Secretary of the Treasury for Donald Trump. Note he is a politician, not a Wall Streeter. In fact, the banks believe he is a bit of an obstacle for getting real reform. Hensarling is generally viewed as not a friend of the big banks, and he really isn’t that interested in their input. Hensarling does have a plan to reform Dodd-Frank, which would include scrapping the Volcker Rule (which prohibits proprietary trading), reining in the CFPB, eliminating caps that banks can charge merchants for debit card transactions, and reforming the SIFI (systemically important financial institutions) rules. The big banks will need to raise a lot of capital in order to have more latitude however, as his bill requires a 10% capital cushion. Citi, for example, is at 7.4%, which means the banks would need to raise hundreds of billions in new equity capital.

The glory days of the CFPB are numbered. A court ruling that prevents the director from being fired and the potential for a business-friendly Trump Director has made it possible for a bipartisan consensus that the director be replaced with a 5 person committee, and that it be subject to Congressional appropriations. At least one expert believes that will slow down the agency and probably cut its enforcement actions in half. As of right now, if you are a graduate of a top law school and have an interest in financial regulation, the CFPB is the hot place to be.

Bottom line: we could get some regulatory relief, however it will be at the margin and probably not a wholesale change from what we have now. Will it be enough to get the private label securitization market back? So far I have not seen anything with respect to required equity tranches etc, so it is hard to tell. The only name for HUD I have heard is Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino, who is fighting HUD on zoning issues and affordable housing mandates.

Richmond Fed President Jeff Lacker said that if Trump enacts a large fiscal stimulus plan, it might cause the Fed to move faster than the markets anticipate. Lacker will be a voting member in 2018.

One of the first jobs the new administration will tackle is to reform Dodd-Frank. The biggest piece of that will be to reform the CFPB, by making it subject to the Congressional appropriation process and to replace a single director with a bipartisan board. Banking stocks have been rallying since the election. Other rules would center around capital requirements and stress tests, which would mainly affect the smaller banks that don’t have massive derivatives portfolios or international operations, in an attempt to ease the regulatory burden on them. Democrats might attempt to filibuster any reform if it goes too far, but there probably is enough common ground in the Senate to make some sort of reform possible.

Could Donald Trump end up facing the nemesis of Bill Clinton’s first administration – the bond vigilante? Certainly if you take his promises at face value: a big uptick in spending with a massive tax cut, then you might see the creature that has been in hibernation since the early 90s resurface.